As with any music, devotees of free improvisation over time zero in on types of things that they hope for in CDs of that "genre." This limited (to 150) edition CD from Traum has aspects that I suspect will greatly impress some fans of the music, though it may engender more lukewarm reactions in others.
Strong listening and interaction are evident on the disk. This is heard, for one, in the group's obvious enjoyment of building complex (quasi)repeated phrases as a group--something like a manual form of looping. As a result, at some points the players come about as close as free players do to "swinging." However, the repetition is never taken too far. In fact, the group shows a quite strong sense of the overall composition they are creating, despite their obvious commitment to in-the-moment reaction and interaction.
Another area in which the trio shows their ear for the shape of the "tunes" is in the willingness of each player to restrain his playing in order to provide appropriate support so that the others can engage in less constrained excursions. Cellist Hans Buetow shows that he can keep up the music's overall sense of momentum up while simultaneously fostering its looseness. His trick is using bowed pedal tones in off-kilter rhythms that allow Riggs and Hall to reel out reams of skittering, clanging one-liners. Drummer Ben Hall, likewise, is willing to stick with brushes and minimalist patterns to support an exchange of long ringing tones and moans between guitar and cello. Even guitarist Riggs, probably the least likely to fade into the background of the three, occasionally provides the free improv version of a pulse for the other players to bounce off ideas.
It is perhaps notable that Riggs is primarily a non-tonal guitarist. It sounds as though he uses a variety of objects to do various forms of construction work, zipper manipulation, and dental surgery on his instrument. This noisemaking is reminiscent of some of Derek Bailey's early work with the Music Improvisation Company. In a slightly more tonal vein, he also does quite interesting work with a volume pedal and extreme intervals that approximates some of the timbres of an analog synth. At least on this CD Riggs could practically be considered as much an amplified-steel-string player as a guitarist, an approach that some find a bit too much a narrowing of the instrument's possibilities.
Judging by this recording, Traum seems to be a close-listener's free improv group. There are not a lot of sparks flying in the music, and one can imagine less attentive listeners hoping to hear grander gestures: perhaps some of the ecstatic bombast of Evan Parker's trio, the alien raucousness of the Zorn/Frith duos, or the hillbilly surrealism of TransMuseq. But Tanto... presents a more staid approach to this music, and it certainly works on that level.
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